L’ Aiglon proves a success in five acts

Who would have guessed? L’Aiglon, the reigning curiosity of the OSM season, turns out to be a good evening in five short acts. Even with minimal movement at the stage apron and rudimentary projections on the screen above, the nearly forgotten 1937 opera on the subject of Napoleon’s star-crossed son held interest on Thursday in the second of three concert performances under Kent Nagano in the Maison symphonique.

Joint authorship might not promise much coherence, but Arthur Honegger and Jacques Ibert were moderate modernists who spoke a mutually understandable musical language. Broadly speaking, Ibert was the good cop, supplying waltzes, froth and a touching conclusion, while Honegger undertook the more forceful episodes, including a cruel dressing-down of the title character by his guardian, Prince Metternich, and a flashback of the Napoleonic battle of Wagram.

The fact that these passages by Honegger — one involving nothing more theatrical than a prolonged gaze by the title character into a mirror and the other an extended hallucination — generated so much suspense is a testament to the Swiss composer’s natural operatic instincts and ear for orchestration. And there were touches of Wagner.

Ibert also has his moments. The confectionary waltzes (with silhouettes dancing on the big screen) are intended to evoke the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, where the teenage Duc de Reichstadt (nicknamed the Eaglet by posterity) is held as a Hapsburg ward but dreams of escaping to France and assuming the mantle of his father.

The Eaglet has his supporters and opponents among the courtly attachés and retainers, who interact considerably in this adaptation of the 1900 play by Edmond Rostand. Screen images of the basic properties (such as Napoleon’s hat, used as a signal) clarified some of the action (as supervised by Daniel Roussel).

Occasionally, the drama had to be taken on faith. French audiences of the 1930s would have had a better sense of the historical intrigue. But it was possible to be engaged by this story and this music.

Thanks, of course, to an excellent cast. Belgian soprano Anne-Catherine Gillet might not have the sweetest voice, but she was apt for the (trouser) title role and vividly projected the Eaglet’s dilemma. French baritone Marc Barrard was sympathetic as Flambeau, the old Bonaparte loyalist; Canadian baritone Étienne Dupuis sounded crisply villainous as Metternich. Philippe Sly, Pascal Charbonneau, Isaiah Bell, Tyler Duncan, Julie Boulianne ... the list goes on.

The final performance is Saturday night.